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Kazumi Sakata is, so to say, a legendary antique shop owner; he was born in 1945, started his shop "古道具坂田" (Antique Sakata) in 1973 at Mejiro, Tokyo, and he's been looking around antique/modern art widely and having influence among many famous people, including Masako Shirasu. He's known as the author of "ひとりよがりのものさし", which covers various things adopted with his original point of view toward beauty, from ancient era to recent years.

I visited his shop the other day and heard of him frankly talking about many things. I had heard of him as a great shop owner who had great sense of beauty in antique art. Then, I got more interested in him after reading Takashi Murakami figuratively speaking that Sakata picked up sort of rubbishes and sold them as if they were something precious. Some people say it's like a religion that people tend to regard things to be beautiful just because Sakata says it's beautiful, although it actually looks nothing but a garbage. I thought it was very fascinating; his magic power of sense of selection.

He unveiled his thought on his work frankly, which was so frank that I felt very astonished, though. He said that he used to treat some traditional antique arts as usual and sold them in very expensive price. But in recent years, he has stopped doing that, now he picks things up from here and there and is producing them as beauties from his point of view. It's exact the same attitude as Murakami said! I found that he's doing it conciouslly, having very strong will. I was kind of moved hearing of him. Antique is so intriguing, I was convinced once again.